Recovery from Sexual Compulsivity by Dr. Mark Schwartz Introduction One male client has obsessive thoughts, spending hours looking at pornography on his computer, scrolling for hours rather than spending the evening with his girlfriend. Another compulsively seeks oral sex with men having large penises, but has no romantic attraction to men. A third is obsessively aroused by images of children, while a fourth pays prostitutes to demean him through physical abuse before going home to his family. Such complex deviations signify why it can be difficult to delineate a rational etiology, and why these clients are often unresponsive to cognitive-behavioral “relapse prevention,” arousal reconditioning, social skill and empathy retraining or exposure-based...

Update on the Masters and Johnson Model for Treatment of Sexual Desire Phase Disorders Factors Contributing to Low Desire and Arousal Masters and Johnson wrote very little about their approach to desire phase disorders. In 1986, Dr. Masters and I co-authored a paper reviewing the Institute’s conceptual approach to inhibited sexual desire. Dr. Masters wrote: “As we mature, sexual response is a natural manifestation of attraction to a person perceived as appealing. This attraction evolves into a casual or committed relationship. Once a pair-bond is established, sexual desire is a natural way of expressing the sense of intimacy that develops within a committed relationship. Therefore, anything that enhances or inhibits relational intimacy may positively...